Sadly; instead of restructuring the companies; the executives concentrated on maximizing their golden parachutes and now the bail out money is gone and the companies are in worse condition than before

It also appears that; in spite of claw backs of AIG bonus moneys; that the financial industry bail out money will also disappear, leaving things in about the same situation as before :X

A bail out without accountability was a bad idea to begin with. It could not succeed in doing anything but feed the greed of the thieves who stole our present and a good portion of our future.
To late, it seems that President Obama is beginning to realize his mistake in listening to some of the advisors who were partly responsible for the problem in the first place

And it isn't just Obama...many of the G8 countries are in the same boat. Canada; is just copy catting what the US is doing; with the same damaging results. Many European countries are struggling with the same issues, although some are stuck at an impass about bailouts...perhaps to their benefit.

I found this little video interesting...

If I was an American politician or executive right now, I would be nervous...after all, a lot of the people they are supposed to be serving own guns!

Quotealanrw
Mathematically you are correct. But it just seems you should never reward the guy with a driver's trophy when all he did was drive the car over the cliff.

alan

Agreed, it seems backwards. However the media is making a bigger deal about this than it should, and thus the public is making a bigger deal about it, and thus the government feels it needs to save face by doing something about it (they are supposed to do the will of the people after all), when REALLY, there are bigger fish to fry as far as economic trouble goes.

I'm hoping this is a case where the government does the parent-young child act. Pats the public on the head, says "there there, mommy will take care of it", and then gets on with all the stuff that really matters to keeping things moving forward. 165 million is not going to make or break the US economy, it looks bad, it's morally suspect (but than I don't pretend to know every case), and it's just plain bad press. But it shouldn't be making the 5 o'clock news imho.

Now as for the entirety of the bailout money being wasted, well, that is an elephant of a different color...

Quotealanrw
Mathematically you are correct. But it just seems you should never reward the guy with a driver's trophy when all he did was drive the car over the cliff.

alan

Ironically, we do.
Even in professional racing, you get paid win or lose, wreck out the gate or not. Sure, there will be consequences, but everyone gets paid their contract no matter how they do. And when the next race comes, you might STILL pick a driver who recently wrecked his car. The business world is not far off. Now, I'm still of the opinion that CEOs (and race car drivers) are paid too much anyway, but here in America we tend to reward risk as much as we reward success.

Not really. If you were a race car driver and consistantly wrecked, you would be looking for a new job fairly quick. There are certain jobs that are bullet proof. I.E. a drug rehablilitation counselor. If you patient relapses, you don't lose your job. But a CEO is pretty much expected to guide the company to a profitable position assuming there are no external factors working against him. In the case of AIG, it is universally agreed these guys were idiots. It is not very often one gets rewarded for being an incompetant idiot.

Lawyers get paid whether they win or loose. Doctors get paid even if they can't fix the problem or have a bad result. CEO's get bonuses for running a company into the ground. Waitresses expect a 15% tip even if the service sucked. I think that if these people can have their cake and eat it too, then why not everybody else...it's the socialist way! We should all get paid whether we are productive human beings or not...otherwise how else could we all be equal? Shouldn't the government take all the risks and protect us from our own poor judgement? Sounds like a bunch of BS! ><